


How The Rebellion Started

by turnedherbrain



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, F/M, Leotilda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-30 00:24:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11452161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnedherbrain/pseuds/turnedherbrain
Summary: Some Leotilda angst, in response to the prompt 'First 'I love you'' for the Humans Challenge 2017 on Tumblr.It's heavily indebted to 'The Handmaid's Tale' (I was watching the TV adaptation when I wrote this), plus lots of other dystopian fiction, including '1984' and 'Brave New World'.





	How The Rebellion Started

It wasn’t long after the synthetic awakening that the far right asserted themselves. Us versus them. Eradicate all those who are different. Then, as swiftly as it had started, the revolution was stopped. Tech was deployed to defeat tech – the same human minds that had created A.I. were forced to collaborate and become the destroyers of their own creation.

“History teaches us a lesson that we never learn,” Mattie’s mum had said. She taught Mattie the parts of history her daughter wasn’t supposed to know – about radicals who tried to bring about change. She imparted those tales, because she saw it as her duty to pass on an oral history that the history books now denied.

Mattie was on her way to college, her eyes cast downwards. She was in her final year at the institution. This was how she was supposed to look: meek and demure. Mattie found it a difficult disguise, and when she was alone, she unravelled.

The morning resolution was about to begin. Girl after girl filed into the hall, looking identical in their long skirts and smock tops.

“In the name of humankind, keep us from destruction,” intoned the headmistress.

“May we be truly thankful,” murmured the mass of girls in unison.

Her mum had said it was a ridiculous merger of the old religion and the new. But that was before she was denounced as a thought deviant. Mattie still didn’t know what had happened to her – she simply came home one day to find her gone and the house wrecked.

After that, Mattie decided to evolve two personalities – one for the surface, and another that she kept hidden. The security forces were non-uniformed and discreet. People she knew and loved had been there one day, erased from official existence the next. So she continued to play at being meek and mild, hoping that she’d meet someone who would look her in the eye and see that glimmer of rebellion.

In her third week of the final term, she saw him. Standing in the lunch queue, she looked up and they momentarily locked onto one another. There was a fleeting look of recognition, a ‘we don’t belong here but we don’t know how to fight it’ type of look.

He was a dishwasher in the college kitchen, and spent his time with hands deep in scummy suds. It meant that he had too much time to think. Although it was an all-girls’ college, some men were allowed. He was the lowest of the low, forbidden from trying to scale the social structure, so he was regarded as inconsequential. When he saw her, he knew that he had to risk communicating. He’d seen an unmistakeable, silent scream of rage that said: ‘Please, let me out.’

The next week of term, Mattie received a parcel of cookies. She’d no idea who’d sent them, but bit into one gratefully. Any small pleasure was to be cherished. When she reached the middle of the cookie, she found it hard to bite down. Taking it out of her mouth, she extracted a piece of paper, folded over and over until it was no bigger than a child’s fingernail.

She read the message, memorised it, then quickly ate the paper. Inside her mind, she ran through the words over and over: _‘There are others like you. I can help to set you free. Find a way to leave the morning resolution tomorrow and meet me at the labs.’_

The next day, Mattie faked a convincing faint during resolution then made her way down the empty corridors to the science labs. This part of the college was subdued and neglected. Where once students had studied genetics or computer science, these subjects were now off the curriculum. The Head of the science faculty, Dr Morrow, had resigned in disgust only the year previously. No-one heard any more of her, although there were multiple rumours about her fate.

The lab was damp and musty. Dust motes appeared suspended in mid-air where the weak shafts of sunlight hit them. The young man from the kitchens stepped into the light, startling her. Up close, he was taller than she’d expected, and could be handsome, except he clearly had no thought for personal appearance. He walked over to her, his gait slightly off-centre, his shoulders hunched. He was like a dog that had been kicked and has learnt how to avoid further injury.

“Hello. I’m Leo.”

“Matilda. But my mum always called me Mattie.”

“Mattie. Nice name.” A smile passed suddenly across his face before his features composed themselves again. “You can trust me,” he continued. “I can help you find a way to escape from all this.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed: this isn’t a prison.”

“But it is. You’re physically denied so much. And your mind is constricted… what you learn here is so manipulated. Don’t you want to scream and shout for once?”

“What you’re saying is treasonous,” countered Mattie, playing at being her obedient self.

“I hear you say those words, Mattie, but you don’t convince me. My mother knew yours: neither of them would stand for this.”

He stepped closer, and she involuntarily took a step back. She had not been in such close proximity with a man for a long time, and certainly not alone. She’d forgotten how that felt: that human attraction, an irresistible urge.

“Can we continue to communicate?” asked Leo, his eyes scanning her face. In the faded sunlight that breached the room, she saw his expression fully: appealing, but also intently rebellious.

“Yes.” She’d decided. Part of her was terrified at the idea of discovery, and what might happen to them. Another part of her wanted to know more about this man – the son of her mother’s friend.

They communicated frequently after that first meeting, although rarely dared to meet in person. When they did, she saw more of his passion and conviction. In turn, he started to tease out her inner self – to the point where she told him about her mother’s disappearance and how she’d felt that day on entering the silent house.

Leo eventually confided to Mattie that there was an underground network – a mixture of radical humans, alongside surviving synths – that was planning to overthrow the government. Once she’d left the college and was under no formal jurisdiction as a minor, she could abscond and join them.

Mattie was excited by being a potential part of the revolution, and she couldn’t sleep. Instead, she lay awake and tried to imagine where Leo was. She didn’t know where he slept – maybe on a sleeping mat in the college kitchen – and she imagined lying alongside him, as close as she dared, that intense look softening until he smiled.

On the final day of term, she made her way to college as usual, a newfound lightness in her step. She even looked up and dared to glance at passers-by. Approaching the institution’s gates, she saw that there was a commotion: a baying crowd of girls around a single figure; a cordon of black-clad agents only just keeping them at bay. The man fell to the ground, and as they momentarily locked glances, she saw who it was.

‘No,’ she mouthed.

‘I love you,’ he said silently, before the agents dragged him into the waiting armoured vehicle. She framed that in her memory, replaying it for a long time to come. His words started a rebellion in her that wouldn’t be put down.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Epilogue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11500713) by [nachocheese26](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nachocheese26/pseuds/nachocheese26)




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